Flickr Photos

Meta

Archive for September, 2008

I went for a short run last night to see how my knee felt. I managed to go 5.5 miles and experienced some weakness and residual soreness, although not as severe as it was last week. With one week left before the Portland Marathon, I’m pretty sure I won’t be running. Yes, I’m truly bummed about this (depressed actually) because I’ve been training for a long time for this (my first) marathon.

It is especially irritating since my fitness level is great and I don’t think the 26.2 miles would be a problem for me. Apparently my 42 year old body parts are the issue here and they are obviously rejecting the idea of running this distance. I don’t mind the $90 donation for my registration fee, but rather it is the significant amount of time and mental energy that I’ve invested over the past 12 months getting ready for this run that is depressing me.

At this point, I think there is little chance that my knee will improve enough to actually consider running on Sunday. But being the stubborn person that I am – I plan to run again on Wednesday to see how my knee feels. If I notice any subtle improvement then I reserve the right to join the masses on race day, fully understanding that I probably won’t finish the full 26.2 miles.

“Conquer yourself, not the world.”

I received my new detector last week, a White’s Beach Hunter ID 300. It is fully submersible to 25 feet and seems to be quite the machine. I was anxious to take it out for spin, so last saturday I spent most of the day at a local lake with a roped off swimming area.

This was my first time water detecting, so I expected the learning curve to be high…and it was. The pinpointing function works differently than my other detectors, and because the water is a murky brown color you cannot see the coil at all. At first, recovering targets in waist deep water was very challenging, but I eventually started using my foot as a guide for both pinpointing and scooping and it became easier. As the day progressed I got better at it, but I still have a long ways to go before I am proficient.

I managed to find over $3 in clad coins (including a 1964 nickel), an earring, a cheap broken pendant, assorted hair pins, several fishing weights, and a 10 cent Euro coin. Nothing valuable – but not a bad day for my first time in the water.

I did work out the kinks and learned a few things. I would really like to get a larger sand scoop to make recovery go faster. I plan to hit the surf (hopefully in a warm climate) and a larger scoop will be imperative. I also realized that, even wearing a full wetsuit I should expect to be cold. After 2-3 hours I was quite cold and had to take a break out of the water to warm up.

I finally hit the pavement for a short run yesterday before work. I only had an hour or less so I figured a 6 miler would be about right. It was still dark when I left the house so I wore my yellow reflective vest for safety.

It only took about 1/2 mile before I realized that my right knee is still sore from my previous 16 miler. Obviously this is discouraging since I should have recovered fully by now. With less than 3 weeks until the marathon – this doesn’t bode well for me. It is beginning to look like my $90 entrance fee will be a donation unless my knee improves dramatically soon.

“Do something worth remembering.”

I postponed my 18 mile benchmark run until Sunday morning so that I could spend most of Saturday cleaning and staining the cedar deck in my back yard. The “honey-do” list has gotten quite large as the summer winds down and I needed to get a few projects completed, this being one of them. As it turns out, that was a colossal mistake on my part. Spending several hours on hands and knees the day before attempting your longest run is not advised. I now know that – duh!

In short, I wasn’t able to run the full 18 miles. I stopped after 16 because my right knee was hurting pretty bad. My hams and glutes were sore from the beginning of my run (my deck project was like doing squats for 5 hours). I still hit another personal DR as my previous record was 15 miles for a single run. I should be happy about the 16 mile DR – but I’m disappointed that I missed my goal of 18 miles. You know how it is with us stubborn, competitive people. I also got another blister (in a different place this time) and two of my toenails are destroyed. I may have to go up another half size in shoes.

On this run I carried my hydration belt with a 20 oz. bottle of Gatorade, one GU gel Espresso Love flavor (gotta love the 2x caffeine) that I consumed at mile 11, my Garmin GPS watch and my Ipod Nano. I also made a couple of quick stops at water fountains to supplement my Gatorade with H2O. Staying hydrated is not a problem on this particular course as I run by several parks.

Next weekend is the 21 mile benchmark – and it seems out of reach now. My knee is still sore and I’m worried that it won’t be 100% by Saturday. With a little over 3 weeks before the marathon – it too, seems an impossibility for me. Nevertheless – I’ll be back out on the pavement in a few days putting in more miles. Ever the optimist…

I purchased several bottles of beer for a tasting last weekend. Among them was Russian River Brewing Company’s Damnation, which is a Belgian-style golden ale. Although I do brew my own beer on occasion, and consume my fair share – I wouldn’t call myself a connoisseur. I humbly prefer to keep my opinions and comments simple. To me, either the beer was good, or it wasn’t. I suppose there is room for some kind of descriptor in the middle of those two extremes, like “average” or “acceptable”. But come on…who’s going to go buy a brew that has been described that way.

Anyway, the point of this post is simply to provide yet another opinion on whether a beer tasted good or not. In this case, Damnation was indeed good. In fact, I’ll be back in the store buying a few more bottles for myself as soon as possible. I hear this particular brew has been tough to find here in Portland. I’m not sure if that is true, or simply someone trying to artificially create demand by spreading false rumors about limited supply.

After a nice extended holiday weekend, my daughter Jadyn and the other Lady Warriors are back on the field and ready to start Fall league. This Sunday they open with a game against Keizer Hotshots. As the weather cools, the rivalries begin to heat up. It should be a great match up and I look forward to seeing the clash of these fine athletes.

Check out the Sodium blog for more details about the upcoming schedule.

-Tommy Lasorda

On Friday our office let out a couple of hours early going into the long holiday weekend. Naturally I had my detector and gear in my truck (since I went detecting before work), so I headed back to the park that produced 3 rings last week. My wife thinks I’m obsessed with this hobby. I wonder why she thinks that?

Anyway, I meandered around in the center of the field for while and found the usual pulltabs and clad coins. I got a strong signal on my MXT and dug this ring. It was really dirty so it took a few seconds to see what it was. As soon as I saw the silverish color and multiple clear stones I was ready to do the happy dance. I was thinking either white gold or platinum, but then I noticed the plating coming off on one side of the ring. The stamp is unreadable (maybe intentially so).

I really thought this was a good one, but it looks like I’ll need to wait a little longer. This makes ring number 19 for me. I’ve got a few 10k and 14k gold rings, even more 92.5 silver rings, and lots of junk rings.